Rehab

With help from an anonymous donor, a local nonprofit organization aims to bring in $200,000 in donations at an annual fundraiser, said an event official Wednesday. The Circle of Life Breakfast, the biggest fundraiser of the year for New Directions for Women — a Costa Mesa group that provides rehab and recovery services to women — is scheduled for March 28 at the Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach. Last year, the event netted about $80,000. This year, an anonymous donor has pledged to match contributions dollar-for-dollar, said Becky Flood, the organization's chief executive officer.

Three Newport Beach rehabilitation home operators appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week in their fight against the city. They lost in two recent judgments by U.S. District Judge James Selna, who ruled in January that the city didn't cause the operators financial harm by enforcing an ordinance regulating the homes, and in October that the city's law does not discriminate against disabled people. "We think that the judge made several errors in his rulings," said Steven Polin, the attorney representing the group home operators.

"Take me to rehab" is the new mantra of celebrities in pop culture today. It's no wonder that rehab homes are popping up like Starbucks on every corner. In a culture that looks for easy answers, this is the latest fad in recovery. Out-of-control Britney Spears shaves her head, Lindsay Lohan allegedly crashes her car into a tree, and it's all OK because they go to rehab. Nicole Richie was in rehab in Corona del Mar. Her second stint there. "She loves it," reports the National Enquirer, "they don't replace one drug with another or make her go cold turkey to detox."

Newport Beach will give the public another chance next week to speak out on a proposed ordnance aimed at tightening restrictions on drug and alcohol rehabilitation homes in Newport Beach. Community members may voice their opinions on the issue at 7 p.m. Tuesday during Newport Beach City Council’s last meeting of the year at Newport Beach City Hall at 3300 Newport Blvd. The city’s special legal counsel on the rehab home issue will also speak at the meeting on parts of the proposed ordinance that could change based on feedback from the public and councilmembers.

Former Newport Beach Mayor Steve Rosansky turned his chair over to successor Ed Selich Tuesday night and called the rehabilitation home debacle that has dogged him in recent months “one of the thorniest issues our town has ever faced.” Rehab home activists who have continually accused Rosansky of having a monetary interest in the rehabilitation industry in Newport Beach over the past months were noticeably silent on the matter Tuesday, instead focusing their energy on a proposed ordinance to curb the spread of rehab homes.

Who does Newport Beach City Councilman Steve Rosansky think he is kidding? The number of rehab houses in Newport now totals more than 100 and is still growing because the city is encouraging it, not because talks with other cities are needed. For more than five years, the city has refused to enforce its own zoning code, which would regulate any and all houses converting to residential treatment homes, also known as rehab houses. These rehab homes provide treatment to drug and alcohol addicts.

My heart was pounding like a jackhammer reading the Daily Pilot article (“Director defends rehab clients,” Dec. 15). So I took it as a sign that I had to respond to the obvious arrogance and ignorance pervading those upset by Sober Living by the Sea’s existence in their back yard. I am a Newport Beach resident and am proud to say I walk the streets of our pampered surroundings with nine years of sobriety under my belt. I shutter to think where I’d be today if the community of Van Nuys would have turned its nose in the air upon my arrival to Twin Town Treatment Center.

NEWPORT BEACH — Angered activist residents have blamed officials for what they call a city inundated with drug-recovery homes. They’ve accused former City Atty. Bob Burnham and Mayor Steve Rosansky of profiting from drug rehab, and they’ve suggested the city manager and current city attorney are covering up for past malfeasance. They told the council this week they believe residents have suffered damages of more than $250 million because of inadequate regulations.

Costa Mesa City Council is wasting time As a longtime resident of Costa Mesa, I am finding it humorous that the seating arrangement for our council members even warrants an entire article in the Daily Pilot ("Musical chairs, but little harmony," March 8). Our elected representatives are wasting time on this snit over who sits where. Have any of my fellow residents noticed the potholes in our streets, the ill-timed traffic lights that keep us waiting forever to turn into our housing tracts when there is no traffic on the road at all, the illegal immigration and crime problems our residents are forced to endure, the growing gang problems, the growing graffiti problems?

Local surfer and Hoag Memorial Presbyterian Hospital surgical technician Joe Griskonis will paddle today from Newport Beach to Catalina and back on a paddleboard to raise funds and awareness for Matt Oka’s rehab and recovery. Oka, 21, broke his neck when he hit a sandbar diving into the ocean at Newport Beach on the Fourth of July. Griskonis assisted in Oka’s surgery that day, and the two have since become close friends. Oka receives help from a physical, occupational and recreational therapy program at the Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center in Downey.

A bill that would require drug and alcohol rehabilitation homes to report residents' deaths passed the California's Assembly Health Committee last week. Assembly Bill 2374, introduced by Assemblyman Allan Mansoor, (R-Costa Mesa), would order the residential treatment centers to call in any resident's death within one working day and follow up with details in a written report to the state Department of Health Care Services. The reports would be required regardless of the cause of death or whether the death occurred at the rehabilitation home.

A Newport Beach-based chain of rehabilitation centers that had been under fire from state regulators for years has agreed to pay a $75,000 settlement and limit its control over residents in its sober-living homes. Until Tuesday, Morningside Recovery had been battling the state in court over allegations that it was running unlicensed residential addiction treatment centers in Orange County. The California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs argued that Morningside essentially combined its seven sober-living homes in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa with three licensed rehab homes and an outpatient treatment center in Costa Mesa to skirt licensing requirements.

Mayor Jim Righeimer announced appointments this week for a group that will address the "negative impacts" some rehabilitation homes have on Costa Mesa neighborhoods. The Preserve Our Neighborhoods Task Force will meet for the first time in a few weeks and establish a regular meeting schedule, city spokesman Bill Lobdell said. Its members are Planning Commissioner Tim Sesler, an attorney who also serves on the city's Pension Oversight Committee; Charter Committee member Kerry McCarthy, an account manager for a national food provider company; Larry Weichman, a local real estate agent; Jeremy Broderick, founder of the Costa Mesa-based Windward Way group home; Scott McClane; Joe McGreevy; and Lisa Morlan.

Costa Mesa is forming a special task force with the goal of examining the negative effects of sober-living homes on city neighborhoods. The group of 10 to 12 members, dubbed the Preserve Our Neighborhoods Task Force, would hold public meetings on the topic, said Mayor Jim Righeimer on Tuesday. The mayor said he will choose its membership, based on input from fellow council members and the public. "We're asking concerned residents to help us form this task force to study the issue and come up with lawful and nondiscriminatory solutions to preserve our neighborhoods as family-friendly communities," Righeimer said in a prepared statement.

The Costa Mesa City Council introduced an ordinance this week that could help the city's enforcement efforts against problematic rehabilitation homes. The council gave an initial 4-0 vote on the ordinance's first reading Tuesday night. Councilwoman Wendy Leece was absent, having left the meeting early. The ordinance faces a second council approval Dec. 3 before it is adopted. The vote comes after the Planning Commission recommended last month that the council adopt language that would change city zoning code with a more robust definition of what's officially dubbed a "single housekeeping unit.

Newport Beach and an advocacy group have reached a settlement agreement in a lawsuit related to rehabilitation home operator Morningside Recovery, the two entities announced Monday. Under the agreement, which comes after years of discussion and litigation, the city must pay Maintain Our Residential Neighborhoods, or MORN, $60,000. MORN entered into legal action against the city in February 2011, arguing that a 2010 zoning agreement allowing rehabilitation home operator Morningside Recovery to operate in residential areas was invalid.

A nurse who worked at rehabilitation facilities in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach is being accused by state authorities of professional misconduct. The California attorney general's office filed the formal accusation against Jill Suzanne Shelton, a registered nurse since 1992, through the state Board of Registered Nursing. Shelton, 43, is accused of illegally obtaining, prescribing and dispensing medications used to treat narcotic dependence, allowing unauthorized staff to provide healthcare services to patients and improperly disposing of controlled substances, according to the complaint filed July 9. She could not be reached for comment through Sure Haven, the Costa Mesa drug and alcohol rehabilitation center for women where she now works as a registered nurse.

Costa Mesa Mayor Jim Righeimer said the city has been working for months on an ordinance that would address rehabilitation homes. Righeimer did not provide specifics, though he said city staff, in conjunction with the city attorney's office, may have a draft ready for the council's consideration by next month. The announcement comes after Morningside Recovery's rehabilitation homes in Newport Beach were forced to shut down after Orange County Superior Court Judge Sheila Fell's Aug. 19 ruling.

Carrie Renfro says she is negatively affected by three rehabilitation homes in and around her small block in Eastside Costa Mesa. She and her neighbors feel that the homes have been the source of robberies, syringes left in their yards and passed-out people on their porches. It's why she volunteered to host a "meet the mayor" session on her front lawn Thursday evening that brought more than 50 people onto her grass and both sides of her Buoy Street home's white picket fence. For more than an hour, Mayor Jim Righeimer and city officials answered questions and talked about the intricate problems and legalities surrounding the homes where people pay to be in a sober-living situation, often to receive treatment for substance abuse.

A special "meet the mayor" session in Costa Mesa will take place Thursday and focus on sober treatment homes, city officials announced Tuesday. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at 198 Buoy St. in Costa Mesa's Eastside, near the corner of East Bay Street and Orange Avenue. Mayor Jim Righeimer will lead the discussion and talk about the city's strategy "in dealing with these properties," according to a city news release. Costa Mesa police and city code enforcement officers will attend the meeting as well.